Students of the Sint-Lodewijk technical secondary school in Genk have been forbidden from using mobile phones within the school premises. According to school director Michel Janssen, mobile phones are not only disruptive but can be used to photograph or film teachers, leading to possible judicial consequences. One teacher in another school was suspended last week for six months after an assault on a pupil, filmed with a mobile phone and posted on YouTube. Another teacher was filmed hitting a student following a snowball incident. “It can’t be right that teachers have to worry more about legal claims than they do about their teaching,” Janssen said.

A plastic surgeon at Ghent University Hospital has succeeded in reattaching the nose of a woman in her 60s, which was bitten off by her own dog. The operation is only the second successful reattachment of its type in history. Not only is the nose uncommonly complex, but, in dog-bite cases, the tissue is usually irretrievably damaged. The Ghent woman’s husband found the detached portion of his wife’s nose and packed it in ice to bring it to the hospital. “The patient is doing well. She is breathing normally through her nose and even has her sense of smell back,” said surgeon Filip Stillaert.

Flanders is rediscovering its taste for travel this Crocus Vacation, with an increase in the number of city trips booked, according to tour operator Jetair. The top five destinations: London, Paris, Rome, Prague and Cologne. “Last year, a lot of people cancelled trips because of the crisis,” commented Hans Vanhaelemeesch of Jetair. “This year, they seem to be making up for lost time.” Meanwhile, 30,000 passengers were expected to pass through Brussels airport last Friday, the beginning of the school holiday.

Flanders will have 800 too few teachers in 2011 – 400 each in pre-school and primary levels, according to figures presented last week by the education committee of the Flemish Parliament. Overall, the education system in the region will require 2,415 extra pre-school teachers, 3,239 primary teachers and 4,139 secondary teachers. But those posts will not all be filled: for example, in a survey taken in March last year, 77% of the vacancies in primary schools went unfilled, as well as 81% posts in junior secondary and 76% in senior secondary.